The Tinkerer: A New 5E Class

New on EN5ider, the 5th Edition patreon - The Tinkerer! Tinkerers reshape the world around them through mechanical means. They use their Affect-Engines to bring to life impressive contraptions, craft incredible devices, and forge legendary destinies by way of a courageous heart and maddening intellect. A full 5th edition class, plus the Steam Knight subclass, by Leuku; illustrated by Joyce Maureira and Grzegorz Pedrycz.

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[Leuku1]

Could a tinkerer craft a crossbow with a "arcanepunk motor" to reload itself? If the arcanetch is possible, why doesn't start the industrial revolution?

Author here.

At least 1 dedicated lightning engine built into the crossbow seems minimally warranted.

This would limit the industrial revolution due to the fact that the number of engines are limited by the number and level of Tinkerers, i.e. you cannot mass-produce auto-loading crossbows. At best, you can let your fighter use a crossbow instead of a longbow.

General advice: If anything mass produced seems like it would start the industrial revolution, limit it by requiring a dedicated use of an engine.

Tangentially, a town inhabited and ran by Tinkerers (like Mechanicsburg from GirlGenius webcomic), would make an intensely interesting campaign locale. The things that prevent this are A) the difficulty by which to gather so many Tinkerers in one place, and B) a Tinkerer's tendency towards massive self-interested ego. It'd be like herding a bunch of cats.

 

[Leuku1]

I hope the advanced article has way, way more things to do with the affect engines, especially at low levels. At first level the tinkerer can buy things at full price in the field, and...make a torch? Gain advantage when using a hammer?

Like Mike says, it be that bedeviled word count limit!

It hurt to cut out and shorten so many Power Appliance examples T_T

There will be things like portable forges, rocket-boosts for your vehicles/mounts, and even your own home brewery.

I also wrote a general guide on how I design Power Appliances. I forget if that's included in the Advance Article - if it's not, then I'll just share it.

 

[Mike Myler]

Leuku's guide for building Power Appliances --> available for free on GMBinder!

 

[77IM]

"Tinker" means to makes something out of tin.
"Tinkerer" is a person who Tinkers.

Leuku1, by creating this class, you have become...

the TINKERERER

 

[robus]

"Tinker" means to makes something out of tin.
"Tinkerer" is a person who Tinkers.

Leuku1, by creating this class, you have become...

the TINKERERER

I dunno, given that he’s showing us how to make a tinkerer fit into D&D perhaps he’s the “tinkerer-tailorer” ?

 

[Leuku1]

xD

"Tinker" means to makes something out of tin.
"Tinkerer" is a person who Tinkers.

Leuku1, by creating this class, you have become...

the TINKERERER

I am become Tinkererer, Kererer of Tin!

This class is not the first thing I've tinkered with. Lately I've been making Big Boss Solos (monsters designed to solo a party without either A) immediately demolishing the party w/n the first two rounds or B) being immediately demolished by the party w/n the first two rounds).

Check out Scaramouche (from Samurai Jack) and The Cleric Beast (Bloodborne)

 

[Zardnaar]

The Tinkerer class can't really be used for a magi tech industrial revolution. IRL the UK got the IR due to 3 main reasons.

1. Finance
2. Easy access to coal
3. Easy access to steel.

The Tinkerer doesnt create anyhting out of nothing. Also the Tinkerer is not that much better than mundane ways of making things. Well it is on a small scale but consider.

A galley costs 30 000

The Tinkerer (lvl 20) can bang one out in 6 days which is great assuming he has the required tools or whatever (a shipyard). Looks great. Lets say one a week (probably not working 7 days a week).

In the 12th century Venice could build about 50 galleys a year, later on this rose to 200 a year and in the lead up to Lepanto (1571 AD/CE) they made 100 in 50 days (they were prefabricated).

This is a best case scenario for mundane real life humans I admit Venice was very good at making galleys.

A level 19 Tinkerer can "only" produce 350 gp a day, 30% less efficient than a lvl 20.

And the industrial revolution can produce stuff faster than this and that is a level 20.

If one gets creative the Bismark Battleship cost 200 millions Reichsmarks which was roughly 50 million dollars (multiply by 14 or 15 to convert to today dollars). Converting a gp to around $20 its going to take years for an artificer to build a battleship (2-3 years IRL).

The only way you can come close is perhaps be able to spam lots of tinkerers but it takes 100 level 1 Tinkerers to equal a level 20 one.

If you can produce them in equal numbers to skilled craftsmen or skilled and semi skilled factory workers its possible maybe to replicate Venice which would take 400 level 1 tinkerers to roughly equal their arsenal or 1200 to produce galleys for the battle of lepanto.

100 of them or a level 20 one can produce around 400 longswords a week, doesn't count armor. It takes a level 1 Tinker working 10 hours a day 6 days a week around a month to equip a Knight, 2 days for a footman in chain, shield, sword or about 150 a year. Impressive in a way but not equip an army solo impressive.

Even if you had Tinkerers in bulk the choke point is money and resources which is a big problem in a pre industrial world so they would need things like a national bank, commodities market, and something like the Spanish Peruvian goldmines or the UK triangle trade. Its a good ability for a solo PC player they can probably help out the fighter or whatever or equip a small guard vast but they can't support a large scale renaissance war let alone an industrial war solo.

They could stockpile though and equip a small army after a year or two though, warpick, hide and shield would be your best bet AC 16, d8 weapon, can produce 2 sets at level 1 per day. Or you can equip 3 pikemen in hide (AC 14) and 2 of them have a dagger and one of them has a spear.

Basically it comes down to your game world. Can you mass produce Tinkerers (around 0.5% to 1% of the population). If you can every city can be Venice on steroids. Less than 0.5% of the USA's population is in the army and they would be one of the bigger jobs in the country.

 

[Leuku1]

Thanks for the Industrial Revolution analysis, Zardnaar!

Converting a gp to around $20 its going to take years for an artificer to build a battleship (2-3 years IRL)

Interestingly, I evaluate 1 gp as around $100, as the listed price of a mug of ale is around 4 cp, and a glass of beer at a not-high-end bar is around $4-5, so 1 cp = 1 dollar, 1gp = 100 dollars.

I strongly agree that a lone Tinkerer could not spark the industrial revolution, mainly due to the fact that the Tinkerer uses its engines to produce power and work as opposed to more mundane means, and there is always a limited quantity of engines in existence.

But a town of Tinkerers, gathered together by the charisma and power of a lone Tinkerer ruler, i.e. Girl Genius' Mechanicsburg, could prove to be a terribly interesting campaign location. Tinkerer lore states that it's generally difficult to get Tinkerers to listen to each other, due to an aggressively heightened ego that typically accompanies the spark of genius. So it would take a remarkably powerful and capable Tinkerer to be able to bring and maintain together an entire town of them.

If I were to tackle my first campaign setting homebrew, it would probably be this.

 

[Zardnaar]

I thought this ability of the class was fine, hence why I was harsh on the damage for the class. Even in a magitek type game with a town full of tinkerers that's something a bit different. A Rogue with expertise in thieves tools is very useful in a Tomb Raider type game.

Leuku does the city of Zobeck mean anything to you? It's the gearforged city in the Midlands setting.

 

[Zardnaar]

Thanks for the Industrial Revolution analysis, Zardnaar!



Interestingly, I evaluate 1 gp as around $100, as the listed price of a mug of ale is around 4 cp, and a glass of beer at a not-high-end bar is around $4-5, so 1 cp = 1 dollar, 1gp = 100 dollars.

I strongly agree that a lone Tinkerer could not spark the industrial revolution, mainly due to the fact that the Tinkerer uses its engines to produce power and work as opposed to more mundane means, and there is always a limited quantity of engines in existence.

But a town of Tinkerers, gathered together by the charisma and power of a lone Tinkerer ruler, i.e. Girl Genius' Mechanicsburg, could prove to be a terribly interesting campaign location. Tinkerer lore states that it's generally difficult to get Tinkerers to listen to each other, due to an aggressively heightened ego that typically accompanies the spark of genius. So it would take a remarkably powerful and capable Tinkerer to be able to bring and maintain together an entire town of them.

If I were to tackle my first campaign setting homebrew, it would probably be this.

Just compared some prices and yeah $100 seems more in the ballpark.

I use the beer standard. 20 beers here at a bar would be $120 which is close to $100 USD. I had some math to do but I can work out how long it would take a Tinkerer to make an Iowa class battleship. Assuming 1gp = $100 the math is. Tinkerer 10 our day 5 days a week X100 to convert to dollars (level 20 is 250k per week), 100 million dollar Iowa 1940 cost adjust for inflation and work it out from there. Well its 1.8 billion/250 000. 7200 weeks I think which is over 1400 years? Takes around 3 years to bang out a Bismarck or Iowa class ship so you would need something like 466 level 20 Tinkerers to do that or 46 600 level 1 Tinkerers.

Your city of Tinkerers idea could maybe make something similar with magitech engines lol.